Il Complesso Barocco Edition

Alan Curtis, ed.

Masterworks and discoveries from Baroque to Classicsin critical performing editionsIn over 35 years of performing concerts and recordings together, Alan Curtis and his group of singers and instrumentalists, Il Complesso Barocco, have not only brought to light many important works that had been forgotten or undervalued, but have also revealed new aspects of even the best-known masterpieces of the era from Monteverdi to Mozart.

The Complesso Barocco Edition is a selection of the most important of these works, with a particular focus on operas and dramatic oratorios. Convinced that the fi nest performers of this repertory appreciate scholarly editions, but often do not have the time to consult in detail critical reports, appendices, etc., Curtis has tried to put as much as possible of the information that is essential for a historically informed performance directly onto the musical page itself. If a passage is preserved in equally valid alternative versions, performers want to make their own decisions and not have to depend on that of the editor. But they usually do not want to be bothered with learning about all the variants that are inferior or simply incorrect, no matter how historically interesting. They also expect, and deserve, a text the accuracy of which has been tested in performance. Curtis also believes that an editor’s responsibilities extend to the provision of a complete and accurate fi gured bass, suggestions for appoggiature, and a consistent application of authentic articulations present in the sources. The possibility of adding a viola part doubling the bass, or of simplifying the contrabass part (for acoustical more than technical reasons), for instance, are among the further aspects of performance practice that, although not unknown, are nevertheless often overlooked in modern editions.

Many of the works in this series will be published not only in full score, but also in a piano-vocal score prepared by Alessandro Bares with accompaniments reduced to an easily playable version for keyboard.